‘Person of Interest’ Star Jim Caviezel on Guns and Jesus

To prepare for his new role on the television drama, “Person of Interest,” actor Jim Caviezel spent a lot of time with Special Forces operatives, and with guns. At the gun range, he handled MP5s, AR-15s, M4 rifles, and broke down weapons blindfolded. He tried to understand the weapon as part of his body, an extension of his hand. Mostly, though he tried to adopt the Special Forces mindset.

“Safety is a big part of what these guys do and they have to be right 100% of the time,” Caviezel told Speakeasy in an interview. “One mistake and somebody usually gets killed.”

“Person of Interest” was created by Jonathan Nolan (co-writer of “The Dark Knight”) and co-executive produced by J.J. Abrams (creator of “Lost”), and premieres tonight on CBS. Caviezel plays Reese, a former member of the elite Special Forces who is now drinking heavily and at the end of his rope in New York City. Enter Mr. Finch (played by Michael Emerson), a billionaire who claims to know when random strangers will be involved in a violent murder or kidnapping. Aware of Reese’s highly specialized skills, Mr. Finch tries to recruit him to carry out their own vigilante form of justice, and prevent the violent crimes from happening.

In the show’s most suspenseful scenes, Reese takes part in fight sequences that seem choreographed with the precision of ballet. Caviezel himself comes from an athletic background, having played 17 years of basketball. He also had extensive martial-arts training as a kid and did some boxing. On “Person of Interest,” there are stuntmen for certain scenes, but “for the most part, you see me in there,” Caviezel said.

When Reese kills, he does so swiftly, with incredible equanimity. He hardly bats an eyelash, and he never grimaces or strains as he takes out four thugs at a time or stops an oncoming SUV transporting an important witness. “Most of these guys do what they do and have their own strong ideals,” Caviezel said of federal agents he studied. “It’s not the same as a guy that walks into a bar and says, I’m Mr. Macho Guy. Guys that are like that, they’re not deadly, they’re not lethal. But these guys are the tip of the spear, they’re the sword. They don’t draw attention to themselves.”

The show is filming on location in New York City, and Caviezel has temporarily relocated here from Los Angeles. He recalled that his first visit to the city was when he was 22. He walked for 25 miles and then took a cab back to his hotel, where he then ate a steak dinner. “I came from a town of maybe 30,000 people,” he said. “Where I came from — Conway, Washington, which isn’t even on the map – and then all of a sudden you walk into a place with all these buildings.”

Caviezel has appeared in films such as “The Thin Red Line” and “Count of Monte Cristo.” He also appeared on television in a remake of the British series, “The Prisoner.” But it was his role as Jesus Christ in the Mel Gibson-directed film, “The Passion of the Christ,” that was most widely publicized, in part because of Caviezel’s own devout Catholicism, and because of controversy surrounding the film and criticism that it was anti-Semitic. Caviezel doesn’t think fans should identify him with any one role, including that of Jesus. “You know, in that one, I just looked at the screenplay and said, yeah, let’s have a go at that. It’s going to be really hard to do Aramaic and Latin. It was a huge challenge for me.”

“I wouldn’t get into a role or a movie if I wasn’t trying to get into this world – just like this character, Reese,” he said. “I’m not a violent person but I have to go into a world where to stay alive, this is what you have to do. This is how you survive here. In that way, whatever people think from that, hopefully they’ll take it and go wow, this guy really is that character. They won’t be thinking of other roles that I’ve played. They’ll just say, he’s a good actor.”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.